


whenever, wherever

by renaissance



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 05:34:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10236995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renaissance/pseuds/renaissance
Summary: Five times their paths could've crossed. (One time they did.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> content warnings: rated T for alcohol use and sexual references. also, there is one anxiety-heavy moment.
> 
> i'm a serious author and i definitely didn't title this fic after a shakira song. not at all.

**-5 | Tokyo | Dec 17, 2005 | 11° C, scattered clouds**

 

Briefly, Yuuri considers sunglasses.

Not that anyone knows who he is—the exact opposite, in fact—but if someone happened to take a photograph of Viktor Nikiforov, and Yuuri was anywhere in his vicinity, and the media picked up on it, and someone recognised that Japanese skater who’d made a fool of himself in the Junior Grand Prix series, then that was it. Yuuri’s life would be over. On the other hand, the sunglasses would come off like a bad disguise, and if he was recognised anyway then all anyone would talk about would be the fact that he’d tried to wear a disguise, and did that mean he was stalking Viktor Nikiforov?

Which, obviously, he wasn’t, but tracking him down before a competition was about as close as you could get.

Yuuri had taken several trains yesterday all the way from Hasetsu and stayed overnight in Tokyo with Mari. His parents wouldn’t let him go unless he had company. Mari is older than Viktor—Yuuri’s not sure why he keeps thinking about that. Maybe it’s because, with so many years between them, Mari has always been his protector, but she’s never really seemed _old_. It makes Viktor seem almost approachable. Like he’s just some boy. Like Yuuri.

That thought doesn’t last long before the fear sets in again. _Obviously_ Viktor is not just some boy. He’s the men’s number one, the hero of the sport that Yuuri is trying to make his career. He’s the most beautiful figure skater in the world, and the most beautiful person too, if you were to ask Yuuri his opinion on the matter.

Five years ago, Yuuri saw Viktor skate for the first time, when he won the Junior Grand Prix in Sofia. Of course, that’s ancient history now—Viktor is well and truly in the senior division, but he still has the same long hair and slightly mischievous smile.

It’s one thing to spend hours staring at posters of his face. Seeing him in the flesh is—special.

Yuuri doesn’t know what to do. Technically, everything is going according to plan. He’s outside the Yoyogi National Gymnasium. He woke up early, leaving Mari in the hotel room, and he’s waited here for hours, specifically for this moment: Viktor walks in, followed by his coach, and Yuuri gets up from where he’s camped out to say, _Viktor, can I have your autograph?_

He always gives autographs to fans. Yuuri has seen scans on the Viktor Nikiforov fanpages on Geocities and LiveJournal. Yuuri has saved every one of those scans to a folder on his parents’ computer that he hopes they’ll never find. He’ll take his own autograph and upload it for the world to see.

But here’s Viktor, walking towards the gymnasium doors, followed by Yakov Feltsman, a legend in his own right, and Yuuri freezes up.

Luckily, his mouth works ahead of his nerves. “Viktor!”

Viktor turns around immediately, an easy smile on his face. “Can I help you?”

Yuuri gets to his feet. While Viktor has an altercation in Russian with Feltsman, Yuuri rifles through his backpack and produces his autograph book. Really, it’s just a normal notebook. He thinks of it as his autograph book because he’s been saving it for Viktor and Viktor alone. He flips open to the middle just as Viktor starts walking towards him.

“Are you a fan?” Viktor asks.

“I’m a competitor,” Yuuri says. A second later, his brain catches up with him. “I mean—”

“Oh, is that so?” Viktor asks playfully. “Are you taking someone’s place in the Final today?”

Yuuri’s mouth twists into a pained grimace. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m only in the junior division. I didn’t even make it to the Junior GPF.”

“Well, participating in the series is a very good start,” Viktor says. “Maybe you’ll make it next year.”

“I want to,” Yuuri says.

Viktor is looking at him, smiling. It’s a tender expression. Nothing like the teasing smile he gives the cameras. Yuuri tries to take a mental snapshot of that expression, to make the moment last. He’s also blushing extravagantly; he wants to sink into the earth and forget this ever happened.

“There’s one other thing,” Yuuri says, before the opportunity disappears, “I guess I’m a fan. I brought you a good luck charm.”

He hands Viktor a flower from the inn’s garden, pressed and preserved between the pages of his autograph book. The moment between Yuuri holding the flower in front of Viktor and Viktor taking it from him seems to stretch on for an eternity. But he does take it, picks it up gently and cradles it in his palms like it could blow away in the wind.

“Thank you,” Viktor says, so genuinely that Yuuri could cry. “What’s your name?”

“Yuuri Katsuki.”

“Yuuri,” Viktor repeats. He grins. “You know that’s a Russian name too?”

Yuuri nods. His throat feels dry, his mind too blank to process the fact that _Viktor Nikiforov asked him for his name_.

“Say, Yuuri, you should give me your autograph, so I have something to remember you by when you’re famous!”

“Autograph?” Yuuri’s jaw drops. “Why would you—”

“I don’t see what else your notebook could be for,” Viktor says. “It’s okay, you can tear out a page for me. I’ll keep it alongside my good luck charm while I skate today. You will be watching, right?”

“Yeah,” Yuuri says. “I, uh. I brought the notebook so I could get _your_ autograph, actually.”

“We must do a trade,” Viktor says, and it appears to be his final word on the matter.

So Yuuri obligingly writes his name in kanji, which Viktor is fascinated by, and tears out the page to hand to him. Then Viktor takes the notebook and takes up a whole page with his signature in cyrillic, as well as a message in English: _yuri, win at junior worlds! i’m cheering for you! xoxo viktor_. Yuuri can’t scan and upload _that_.

“I have to go now,” Viktor says, “otherwise I think Yakov will have a heart attack. Cheer for me today, okay?”

“I promise,” Yuuri says.

Viktor gives Yuuri one last smile—another memory to treasure—before he dashes off back to his coach and into the stadium. Yuuri’s heart is full-to-bursting. _He did it_.

Mari will be here soon and then they’ll go in and get their seats for the men’s short programmes. He’ll be watching Viktor skate and he’ll know that Viktor has his name and a small pressed flower waiting for him on the bench, a memento of a moment so fleeting but so perfect, so much like everything Yuuri has ever dreamt. He’s going to have such a story to tell when he gets back to Hasetsu.

Then, halfway into the gymnasium, Viktor turns around and calls, “See you in the senior division, Yuuri!”

As it turns out, Viktor Nikiforov really is just another teenage boy.

 

 

**-4 | Gothenburg | Mar 21, 2008 | -1° C, light snow**

 

There are strict, complicated rules for how many entrants per event a country can put forward for Worlds. This year, Japan is one of a select few countries allowed three entries. Yuuri knows this is the only reason why he was invited to Sweden to make his senior debut. The skaters who had done so well last year have all retired, and there’s a new guard of young talent taking their place.

As evidenced by his appalling short programme, Yuuri is not one of the new guard. He’s just some fraud who they threw into the mix to make up the numbers.

The rules at Worlds cover more than the number of entries. If you place any lower than twenty-fourth in the short programme, you can’t advance to the free skate. All the work you might’ve put into your programme—wasted.

Yuuri came twenty-fifth.

He must cut a pathetic figure, out here in the snow, not even an awning to keep him dry. Team Japan jacket pulled tight around his knees, he curls in on himself to keep warm. But it's this or going back inside, and the thought of facing his teammates and his coach right now is practically inconceivable. So it’s to be the snow—he sticks out his hand to catch the falling flakes, even though he hasn’t got any gloves on and his fingers are shaking. He’s used to worse back home.

He’s so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he doesn’t even notice when someone walks up to him until they say, “Are you alright?”

Yuuri jerks his hand bank and wraps his arms around his chest, curling in on himself instinctively. He nods curtly and tucks his chin against his chest.

“It’s cold out here,” the person says. “You should at least come sit inside.”

“I’m fine,” Yuuri says.

When he looks up, though, he is decidedly _not_ fine. Yuuri’s eyes take in the person before him from the bottom up—he’s tall and wearing the Team Russia uniform and smiling so warmly and he’s only _Viktor Nikiforov_ , Yuuri’s lifelong idol. Viktor sits down next to Yuuri, and Yuuri has to bite his lip so that he doesn’t do anything stupid like ask Viktor to marry him.

“You skated this afternoon, right?” Viktor asks.

Yuuri’s eyes feel like they’re going to pop out of his head. “You saw that?”

“It was a good routine,” Viktor says. “Very solid step sequence, and your presentation there was good—but around the jumps you got sloppy. I think that was probably your nerves. It’s okay to get nervous at a big competition, by the way! But looking at the way you skated, you definitely have the potential to pull off those jumps. Maybe even a quad toe loop. That would suit your style.”

Does he always talk this much? Yuuri struggles to take it all in. His brain isn’t doing too well with English right now.

“Thank you,” Yuuri manages.

“I love this weather,” Viktor says, apropos of nothing. “Not too heavy, but enough snow to make everything a little bit more beautiful than usual. Are you sure you aren’t cold?”

“Yeah,” Yuuri says, but his body gives him away. He clasps his hands together to hide the tips of his fingers turning white.

Viktor reaches into his pocket and produces a pair of gloves. “Just in case it gets colder,” he says.

Yuuri hesitates. “Won’t you need them?”

“I’m Russian,” Viktor says. “I don’t get cold.”

“If you’re sure,” Yuuri says. He feels better immediately when he puts the gloves on, but he keeps that to himself.

They sit in silence—the snow falls heavier. Yuuri extends his arm again and watches as small white speckles cover Viktor’s black leather gloves. It’s peaceful like this. Yuuri can almost pretend that nothing’s wrong. Viktor is right about the snow making everything beautiful. There’s something about a day like today that makes it impossible to be too sad, like they’re at the centre of a tableau in a snowglobe, designed to be admired with open-faced fascination and fondness.

“How old are you?” Viktor asks suddenly.

“Eighteen,” Yuuri says.

Viktor hums. “I remember eighteen. It was like I’d barely begun. Don’t let one near miss spoil the future for you, because there’ll be so many more opportunities.”

Intuitively, Yuuri knows that he’s right. This is only his debut. There will be so many more opportunities for him to prove himself in the senior division. It’s one thing to know that, though, and another to feel it. Yuuri doesn’t feel it yet, doesn’t feel like he can recover from this shame.

“Are you still at school, or have you graduated?” Viktor presses. “Are you at college?”

“I just graduated,” Yuuri says. “I’m going to college in America starting in September.”

And that’s another big thing that he can think but not _feel_ yet—that he’s moving to Detroit, that he’s been accepted into a degree programme, that he’ll have a new coach, who _wants_ Yuuri to be one of his students. It’s a big move.

Yuuri expects pleasant curiosity from Viktor. Instead, he gets unbridled enthusiasm.

“Wow! You must be smart! What are you going to study? Where in America? And who’s going to be your coach once you’re there? You’ll still compete for Team Japan, won’t you?”

“I will,” Yuuri says. He replays it in his mind, tries to focus in on the questions. “I’m going to Detroit to train under Celestino Cialdini. And I’ll be studying computer science.”

“Amazing,” Viktor says. “I wish I had gone to college. But I was too busy skating.”

Just as quickly as he’d started cheering up, Yuuri gets hit with another wave of inadequacy. Viktor is the world number one and he’s had all the time in the world to train. Yuuri has never had that—he’s always split his time between studying and skating, family and skating, working and skating. He doesn’t think he ought to tell Viktor as such, but he’s going to anyway.

“It’s not so—”

Viktor interrupts him with, “Hey, if I’m ever in Detroit, you’ll take me to a college party, won’t you? Will you join a frat? I’ve seen so many frat parties in American movies. I’ve always wanted to drink out of one of those red cups.”

Instead of all the sensible things Yuuri could say, he asks Viktor, “How will you know where to find me?”

“Oh,” Viktor says, “we’d better swap email addresses, hadn’t we?”

He says it without missing a beat, and so smoothly too. If Yuuri didn’t know better—wasn’t so painfully aware of his own shortcomings—he would’ve said that Viktor was flirting. The way he leans in closer, the excitement in his voice… but no, it’s just friendliness. Yuuri has seen that same friendliness in interviews with Viktor.

So it’s no problem for Yuuri to reply, “Yeah. Let’s—we should do that.”

Viktor gets out his phone and it’s so embarrassingly modern compared to Yuuri’s that Yuuri almost rescinds his agreement then and there. Somehow, though, he manages to tell Viktor that he doesn’t get internet on his Nokia and that he’ll just enter Viktor’s email address in a note. Viktor, meanwhile, is busy drafting his first email to Yuuri—a promise Yuuri will receive later, when he’s back at his hotel, a guarantee of a long friendship.

But for now—

“It’s getting cold,” Yuuri says. “I think I’ll head inside.”

“Me too; I need to find my teammates,” Viktor says.

He gets to his feet and holds out his hand to help Yuuri up. Yuuri takes it, and Viktor threads their fingers together. He lets go once they’re out of the snow, but the feeling remains. Yuuri’s never felt anything half so warm in his life.

 

 

**-3 | Moscow | Oct 24, 2009 | 6° C, light rain**

 

Bronze.

Yuuri twists the medal—bronze—around in his fingers, pressing it flat against the palms of his hands and feeling how it weighs. He’s won medals before, at local competitions, and even once at Nationals—but this is a Grand Prix series medal, a bronze at the Rostelecom Cup. It’s different. The heft of the medal in his hands, the cool of the metal, the ridging in the ribbon and the way it sits around his neck—

 _Bronze_.

“Congratulations, Yuuri.” It’s the silver medallist speaking, Christophe Giacometti, as they step down from the podium. “I’m impressed.”

The other thing: a bronze medal is not enough for Yuuri to advance to the finals if he doesn’t do well enough in his next event, Skate America.

“Thank you,” Yuuri says. He’s too nervous to know whether or not he sounds genuine.

“You want to come out tonight?” Christophe asks. “A few of us are going out for drinks later. Think of it like pre-drinks for the banquet.”

“Sorry,” Yuuri says, “I’d like to, but I’m still nineteen.”

Also, he can think of absolutely nothing worse than being surrounded by skaters he admires and alcohol, the two things which have the potential to send him off the rails.

Then the gold medallist, Georgi Popovich, speaks up: “The drinking age here is eighteen. You don’t need to worry about that.”

“You don’t even have to drink if you don’t want to,” Christophe says.

Yuuri knows he’s being kind, but there’s something kind of sleazy about Christophe that makes every word out of his mouth sound like a come-on.

Christophe adds, “You can have virgin cocktails.”

That’s _definitely_ a come-on. But something about the idea of getting a little tipsy letting go is starting to appeal to Yuuri. If anyone can understand how he’s feeling, it’ll be other skaters. Christophe and Georgi are two and four years older than him respectively, so it’s easy to forget that they were once in the same position. Every top skater had to win their first Grand Prix medal at some point. Yuuri indulgently imagines that he will be one of them, one day.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll come.”

He goes back to the hotel to get changed into the only nice outfit he brought—nice enough to wear for a night on the town, not nice enough for the banquet. It must have been prescience that convinced him to put it in his suitcase back in his pokey flat in Dearborn. Now, he checks his hair in the mirror and smooths out his button-down and puts his bronze medal— _bronze_ —in the safe at the back of the closet in his hotel room.

He’s doing pretty well for himself.

There’s light rain falling when Yuuri makes his way down to the hotel lobby. Christophe is waiting for him, leaning casually against the wall. Yuuri briefly tosses up the virtues of flirting with him, seeing how far he gets. It’s not even a real question since he’d never be confident enough to actually enact any of the scenarios in his mind. He thinks about it anyway.

“The others are already there,” Christophe says, waving.

Yuuri cringes. “Sorry for keeping you waiting.”

“I’m a tourist here too so I thought we could keep each other company,” Christophe says, leading the way out of the lobby. “You’d think I might have worked it out by now. Viktor’s given me so many grand tours whenever I’m here, but I have an unfortunate habit of paying more attention to his ass than the road signs.”

“Viktor?” Yuuri can’t help himself from asking. “Viktor Nikiforov?”

Christophe raises an eyebrow. “Do you know any other Viktors with nice asses?”

“I don’t know Viktor,” Yuuri admits. His glasses are already covered in raindrops, and he turns up his collar to the wind. “I’ve seen him around, but we’ve never—”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Christophe says. “I coaxed him up to watch the skating, so he’s coming out tonight. I’ll introduce you two.”

Yuuri just about bolts back to the hotel then and there. Locking himself in his room would be preferable to the abject mortification that he’s sure will follow if he spends even a second in Viktor Nikiforov’s presence. Christophe seems to sense this, and puts a hand on the small of Yuuri’s back, steering him around the corner. Yuuri resigns himself to his fate.

“Thanks,” Yuuri says shakily.

“Who knows,” Christophe muses. “You’re clearly a fan. Maybe you and Viktor will hit it off, if you get my meaning.”

“I get your meaning well enough,” Yuuri says. “But what about you and—”

Christophe holds out one hand like a stop sign. “Oh, Yuuri. Just because I check out his ass, doesn’t mean I want to tap it. There are plenty of fish in the sea for a man like me. You, on the other hand…”

“Are you suggesting that I’m not attractive?” Yuuri asks. He’s getting prickly, and he thinks that’s exactly what Christophe intended to happen, but he lets it happen anyway. “Or that no-one would be interested in me?”

“Not at all, my dear,” Christophe says. “Only that you’re shy. Sometimes shy people need a little push.”

“Am I supposed to thank you?”

“Only when you get laid,” Christophe says, winking.

They pass the rest of the walk to the bar in silence, Christophe occasionally pausing to check their directions on his phone. Yuuri’s shoulders are tense and the steady rain doesn’t help. He wishes he’d brought an umbrella. As it is, when they make it to the bar his nice outfit is just wet enough to be uncomfortable and his white shirt has gone translucent. He skips the pleasantries and goes straight for a vodka shot.

It gets a little easier after the third shot. The other skaters are mostly older than Yuuri but some of them are younger, and they’re all friendly and encouraging. This isn’t the nightmare that Yuuri had envisioned—although, that could be mainly because Viktor isn’t there yet.

Christophe keeps promising that Viktor will show up soon. “He’s on his way,” he says.

“That’s what you said ten minutes ago,” Yuuri says. “Chris—Christophe—if Viktor isn’t here soon I… I don’t know what I’ll do.”

He doesn’t know when he stopped dreading this meeting and started anticipating it. Somewhere between his fifth shot and his second beer, probably.

“I’m certain this time,” Christophe says. “He texted me.”

“I’ll believe it when I—”

He’s interrupted by Christophe getting to his feet, waving across the bar. “Over here, Viktor!”

Yuuri’s confidence is all ups and downs. This is a down. His shirt is still damp and he’s pretty sure his hair is all over the place. And of course Viktor arrives in front of him looking impeccable. Yuuri sucks in a breath and stands up straighter.

There’s a moment.

They make eye contact and the entire world stands still. The loud music pumping through the bar falls away leaving only a shuddering bass ostinato, low and compelling. Or maybe that’s just Yuuri’s heartbeat echoing in his ears as all the blood rushes to his head.

“Wow,” Viktor says.

Yuuri’s not sure if it’s a good wow or a bad wow, but the way Viktor says it makes him feel like a gold medal winner. Viktor’s gaze flutters downward for just a beat. Yuuri licks his lips. His confidence is all ups and downs. This is an up.

Christophe clears his throat. “Yuuri, this is Viktor Nikiforov. Viktor, this is—”

Yuuri stands on his toes and cups his hands either side of Viktor’s face, kissing him on the mouth.

 

 

**-2 | Portland | Nov 10, 2010 | 10° C, mostly cloudy**

 

Once he’s checked into his hotel room, Yuuri heads outside for a walk. It was a five hour flight from Detroit to Portland, airless and dull without any company. Celestino’s coming in on a later flight—until then, Yuuri is left to his own devices.

He’s only been wandering for a few minutes when he hears a voice call his name.

“Yuuri Katsuki?”

Shielding his eyes from the sun’s glare, Yuuri turns to look behind him. At first he thinks he’s seeing things. The only person there is Viktor Nikiforov, standing with the sun behind him and glowing like he has a halo. But there’s no way he knows Yuuri’s name.

“That’s you, right?” Viktor asks.

Yuuri puts a hand to his chest. He must be having a heart attack. “I’m—yes, that’s me. Did you… want anything… ?”

“Only to say good luck,” Viktor says. “See you on the ice!”

That’s it? Yuuri is meeting his idol at long last and all Viktor has to say is _good luck_? It feels a little anticlimactic. Yuuri has spent half his life preparing for this moment, rehearsing his lines in front of the mirror and imagining what Viktor would be like, what he’d say, how he’d act. The fact that Viktor knew Yuuri’s name is little consolation in the face of this disappointment.

“Wait!” Yuuri blurts. “Do you—I wondered if you—had any advice?”

He is such an _idiot_. Advice? _Advice_? What sort of person asks someone they’ve just met for advice?

Viktor cocks his head, and Yuuri amends, “For nerves. I mean. If you get nervous. Do you have advice for dealing with your nerves?”

“Oh, sure, I get nervous sometimes,” Viktor says, in a way that indicates he absolutely does not. But Yuuri doesn’t miss the way his stance changes, like he’s settling in to stay longer in the one place. For a conversation. “I find that the best way to get over your nerves about one thing is to focus on another thing.”

“What do you focus on?” Yuuri asks.

Viktor looks up at the sky. “It’s a nice day, isn’t it? Do you want to walk along the river?”

A voice at the back of Yuuri’s mind is screaming, _Be careful what you wish for!_ Well, he wanted to spend more time talking to Viktor. Now he has to endure the embarrassment of putting his innate conversational ineptitude on display for at least the length of a walk along the river. The Willamette cuts through the whole city, so the spatial length of their walk depends on the temporal length Viktor can go without getting bored of Yuuri’s company. With any luck, that won’t be very long at all.

“Yeah,” Yuuri says. “Okay.”

Viktor leads the way down to the river like he’s been here before, and Yuuri wonders if he arrived a day or so ago, because he knows from his encyclopaedic memory of every programme Viktor has ever skated that he’s never competed in Portland. And they must be staying at the same hotel, otherwise why would Viktor have been wandering around there?

As they walk, Yuuri keeps a respectable distance between them. He doesn’t want to get close enough for Viktor to pick up on the fact that he’s practically vibrating with anxiety.

“So, nerves,” Viktor says, looking out across the water. “I think it depends on how used to performing you are. I’ve been skating competitively for over ten years—you get more used to it.” He shrugs like it’s no big deal. “How long have you been competitive?”

“Only six years,” Yuuri says.

“ _Only_?” Viktor turns back to Yuuri. “Six years is nothing to be scoffed at! Maybe you’re just a nervous person.”

Which is true, but Viktor doesn’t need to know that. Yuuri is beginning to regret everything he’s done today leading up to this, right from the moment he rolled out of bed at ridiculous o’clock back in Detroit. He takes a deep breath.

“So what?”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Viktor says. He’s clearly holding back a laugh. “Focusing on something else might not be the best trick, then. How about a distraction?”

“That sounds like the same thing,” Yuuri says.

“No, it’s different,” Viktor insists. “If you focus on something else it has _all_ of your attention. I guess you don’t want to do that before a skate, do you? You just want to focus superficially like… a distraction. Okay. It’s the same thing.”

Yuuri laughs for half a second before realising who he’s laughing at. He slaps a hand over his mouth. Viktor, for his part, is frowning at himself, eyebrows knit in concentration, humming thoughtfully.

“Do you have a better suggestion?” Yuuri asks, enjoying himself slightly more now that he’s seen Viktor make a fool of himself.

“How about an incentive?” Viktor says. “Sometimes, when I don’t want to do something, I promise myself that I’ll do something nice after. That could work!”

Back when he was still living in Hasestu, Yuuri would have the incentive of his mum’s katsudon if he won. Half the world away, that is not much of an option. But having something to look forward to at the other end of a competition was always nice. He just… hasn’t done it. In a very long time. Sometimes he thinks about going home. Other times, he tries not to think about going home and thinks about how he can replicate the feeling here instead.

“It could work,” he agrees.

Viktor nods. “So what motivates you?”

“Katsudon,” Yuuri says. “Ah—it’s a dish I used to eat a lot back home.”

“How about something that’s easier to get your hands on?”

Yuuri shrugs. He’s not sure himself.

Viktor stops walking and puts a finger to his lips, looking at Yuuri for a good long while. Then, he exclaims, “I know! If you win a silver medal, I’ll give you a kiss!”

A gust of wind blows past them and Yuuri wills it to dunk him headfirst into the river. Hopefully the water would be cold enough to snap him out of whatever daydream he’s walked into. The idea of Viktor kissing him is completely beyond his comprehension, so he focuses on the part of Viktor’s incentive that he does understand.

“A silver medal? Why not gold?”

“I plan on getting gold,” Viktor says. His eyes glint with something impulsive and competitive.

“You know, I never said I was nervous about skating,” Yuuri says, even though he sort of is. There’s nothing like false bravado. “I only asked to distract myself from how nervous I am to be talking to you.”

Viktor’s jaw drops. Yuuri keeps going.

“I plan on getting gold on Saturday,” he says. He has no idea where this is coming from, but he manages to add, “Maybe if you get silver, I’ll give you a kiss.”

“An incentive for both of us,” Viktor says, confident again.

Yuuri tilts his chin, challenging. “May the best man win.”

Now all he has to do is get a score high enough to win gold in an event with Viktor Nikiforov competing. Although, he would settle for silver. Either way, he wins.

 

 

**-1 | Nice | Mar 30, 2012 | 15° C, clear**

 

At Yuuri’s first senior Worlds, he had placed twenty-fifth and narrowly missed out on progressing from the short programme to the free skate. At his next three, he scraped into the top twenty-four and finished near the bottom of the bunch. At this, his fifth senior Worlds, he’s in fifth place after the short programme, and he’s not entirely sure what to do with that information.

Everyone is very excited for him. Celestino pulls him into a hug and tells him he’s really outdone himself. Phichit squeezes all the breath out of him and takes his hands and dances him around in circles, so, so proud. Yuuri can’t share his excitement—Phichit finished twenty-fifth. Yuuri can’t understand how Phichit can maintain his good cheer at a time like this.

“Fifth is amazing, Yuuri,” Phichit says, one arm around Yuuri’s shoulders. “And here you were saying you didn’t think you’d make it!”

“I _didn’t_ think I’d make it,” Yuuri says. “I was so sure…”

He trails off. His own false modesty isn’t what Phichit needs to hear right now.

“Will you be okay?”

“Me?” Phichit shrugs. “I’ll be fine. It’s not like I’ve ever made it higher than this at Worlds. I’m just getting better and better!”

But Phichit is _better_ than Yuuri—if not in terms of experience, then surely in terms of his flair for the sport and his enthralling performances. The guilt gnaws away at Yuuri and gets muddled with all of his anxieties about the free skate and having to compete against such a strong pool of skaters.

“Are _you_ going to be alright?” Phichit asks. “I’m just saying… this is a big deal for you, isn’t it?”

Yuuri swallows. “Yeah. It is.”

Phichit gives him an encouraging smile. “We’ll all be cheering for you. You know that.”

“I know.”

It’s all well and good for him to agree with Phichit and brush him off, but now the buzzing in Yuuri’s head is getting even louder and he feels like he might pass out.

“Um, I’ll meet you back at the hotel,” he says. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

Phichit doesn’t ask why. They’re on the same page about this by now.

Yuuri searches for a bathroom further from the crowds, one hand running along the walls of the corridors to keep him grounded. He finally finds a place, a men’s room which doesn’t seem to have anyone in any of the stalls. He goes to the furthest stall and shuts himself in, and cries.

There’s nothing for catharsis like a good cry. Yuuri tucks his head down between his knees and covers his face with his hands and lets them get sloppy with tears as they muffle the sobs he can’t hold back. He’s not sure how long he stays like that. It could be minutes. It could be half an hour. Then, he hears footsteps; someone else is in the bathroom. He does his best to stop crying but he’s not ready yet—it’s a precise process, and this is only about halfway through the cycle.

“Are you alright?”

The speaker has a lovely baritone voice that Yuuri would be more interested in if he weren’t in the middle of purging every emotion in his repertoire. There’s an accent too, but there’s also a ringing in Yuuri’s ears that stops him from fully interpreting it beyond “European.”

“I don’t want to intrude,” the man says. “But… do you need anything?”

“No,” Yuuri chokes out. “I’m—”

Whoever this is, he doesn’t know Yuuri. He doesn’t know why Yuuri’s crying or that it’s probably not a good idea to interrupt him in the middle of an anxiety attack. And, strangely, that calms Yuuri, just a little. He can talk without worrying about all the artifice of it.

“Do you want to talk about it?” the man asks, reading his mind.

“My friend missed out on making the top twenty-four today,” Yuuri says. “And I—I keep thinking that I’m not good enough to be where I am—that I’m succeeding in the place of others—that I won’t live up to anyone’s expectations tomorrow—”

It does feel good to say it out loud. Or, if not good, it certainly feels _better_.

“Wait,” the man says, “you were one of the skaters today?”

Yuuri sniffs and nods, a stupid impulse, even though the man can’t see him. “Yeah, I was.”

“And you’ll be competing in the free skate tomorrow?”

“I guess I will,” Yuuri says. He’ll have to, if he even has close to a chance of living up to those expectations.

“Oh! Me too.”

Yuuri’s mind goes blank at the front and into overload behind, running through the other competitors and trying to think of who this man could be that he’s in the top twenty-four male figure skaters at Worlds this year. That’s a very small number of people. Most of them came lower than fifth—that’s just probability—and if that’s the case, then Yuuri absolutely cannot reveal himself, because he already feels preemptively awful for crying over a score which is higher than this man’s.

The other two options are Christophe Giacometti and Viktor Nikiforov. Christophe is an acquaintance, maybe even a friend, if Yuuri’s being generous, and this is not his voice. And if it’s Viktor, then—

“Why don’t you come outside with me? It’s a lovely clear day and there’s a park nearby. We can go for a walk.”

And, _oh_ , the fog around Yuuri’s brain is clearing and he’s almost certainly hearing Viktor’s voice, the same voice he’s heard over and over in interviews. He’s furious at himself for getting distracted, for spilling all his problems to his idol. Viktor is still talking, asking if Yuuri’s okay, which is funny, because Yuuri is absolutely the opposite of okay.

He needs to make sure he’s right.

All in one motion, he gets to his feet, wipes the back of his hand across his eyes, unlocks the door to the stall.

Yep. Definitely Viktor.

“Oh,” Viktor says. He must be taking it in—that he found the fifth place finisher crying in a bathroom. When Yuuri thinks of it that way, it sounds stupid. He feels a little lighter.

The silence stretches out between them. At last, Yuuri says, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to dump all my problems on you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Viktor says, all easy congeniality. “Want to head out to the park? We don’t need to talk.”

He leaves unsaid that sometimes, when you’re stressed, all you really need is a bit of company. Someone to stand by you and say nothing, their presence all the reassurance they can give. Yuuri is still feeling tense, still riding the tail end of his anxiety attack, and Phichit is probably back at the hotel by now. He closes his eyes, and when he opens them, Viktor is still standing there. And it’s a sunny day outside, so Yuuri is hopeful that it’ll work.

Viktor holds out his hand, and Yuuri takes it.

 

 

**+1 | Sochi | Dec 9, 2012 | 6° C, overcast**

 

In the end, Yuuri never went to Tokyo. Mari was busy and he would’ve had to find another chaperone. Minako was the only real possibility, and she taught on weekends; he didn’t want to drag her away from her job. He stayed in the snow for a few minutes but when his hands started to shake he went inside. Christophe asked him to come out for drinks, but Yuuri made excuses. And he went straight to his hotel room after arriving in Portland, exhausted from the five hour flight. In Nice, he held out until he got back to the hotel with Phichit, collapsing face down on his bed until his energy came back.

In the end, they meet in Sochi.

The world spins in the function hall like a merry-go-round at a carnival, and each of Yuuri’s steps takes him in a different direction. He can’t see how many fingers he’s holding up in front of him but he _can_ dance. Every good carnival attraction has music. Yuuri neither knows nor cares what this song is—so long as it’s playing, he’s dancing.

He has a goal. It’s not a very clear goal, nor a well-thought out one, but it’s what he’s holding on to and he intends to follow it through. Without a goal, he would be even more of an aimless drunk, more of an embarrassment, more of something he would regret the next morning. Something he’d regret more than blowing his biggest chance at his first Grand Prix Final.

An arm outstretched, a smile on his face that shouldn’t belong to him. He spreads his fingers wide and then there are fingers joined with his— _Viktor’s_ fingers—and Yuuri draws Viktor back onto the dance floor so they can go again.

It’s not a familiar song, but right now it may as well be the national anthem.

When they stop again—how long had that song lasted?—Yuuri clings to Viktor, an artful mess with his hair rumpled and his trousers god knows where. He’ll need to find them again before he can leave. It’s cold and cloudy outside and he doesn’t want to freeze to death before he can wake up the next morning to find Viktor’s number on his phone or written in biro on the back of his hand, or a selfie of the two of them on his phone as the commemorative photo he’d turned down.

“When this season is over, my family owns a resort in Japan,” Yuuri slurs. He’s not making any sense. “Please—come and visit?”

Viktor doesn’t say anything, so Yuuri keeps talking.

“If I win this dance-off, will you be my coach?”

He doesn’t mean to say it—this was never part of the goal—but the moment the words leave his mouth he knows it’s exactly what he needs.

“Be my coach, Viktor!”

**Author's Note:**

> shout-out to wikipedia & its handy links to the ISU website for having so much information on past competitions, including schedules and locations, which helped me decide where to set each of the first five scenes, and to [weather underground](https://www.wunderground.com/) for having the historical weather records which shaped the content of the scenes. what you've just read is about 10% of the effort i put into this fic. the other 90% was research and timeline consolidation, assuming the first meeting takes place in late 2012 and the rest happens during the 2013-14 season. i just wanted to write something light. what happened.
> 
> also inb4 you ask, yes, i am considering expanding some or all of these first meetings into longer stories. not yet though. i have angst to write. (shameless plug, but you can read it over [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8690938).)


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